Talkin’ Chocolate

Arcelia Gallardo, a Berkeley, California–based chocolatier, traveled the world in order to become a cacao expert. Here she shares what she has learned, and how she roots her creations in Latin America.

You traveled all over the world to learn the history of chocolate; what surprised you the most during your travels?

How little is known about the true history of chocolate and how few women are in the chocolate business.

What are some of the highlights of that educational trip?

Spending a day in Naples, Italy at a chocolate shop with chocolate makers that had been in the business for 100 years. Walking inside the Perugina factory in Perugia, Italy and seeing the large scale process of the Baci candy. Seeing a chocolate sculpture of Don Quixote in the chocolate museum in Barcelona, Spain. 

What do you love most about working with chocolate?

It’s global and it can tell a story across all sectors: economics, policy, trade, health, religion and culture.

What Latin flavors do you incorporate into your creations?

Tequila, quinoa, chile, mango, tamarindo, guayaba, pumpkin seeds, agave, cajeta, canela and maracuya.

What flavors do you want to try out?

Yucca, plantain, coconut, dulce de leche and Jamaica.

You’ve done chocolate in the shape of Mayan calendars, Virgin de Guadalupe statues… What else?

Cacao gods, Diego Rivera paintings and day of the dead altares.

How do you help farmers make money in the chocolate process?

Education is the key; they have to know how to optimize their harvest and how to deliver a higher quality product.  They have to also understand the value of what they are selling; many farmers have never tasted chocolate nor do they know what happens to the cacao once it leaves their farms. 

What’s your ideal breakfast, lunch and dinner incorporating chocolate into each meal?

Breakfast would be a locally baked baguette slightly toasted then topped with my mixture of creamy dark chocolate with toasted hazelnuts and using the same dark chocolate and hazelnuts I would make a hot chocolate drink with a shot of espresso. Lunch is a simple salad topped with crunchy cacao nibs. Dinner is a chocolaty spicy thick mole sauce over sword fish.

What’s your best food memory?

Watching my grandmother add heaping amounts of lard into everything.

Favorite kitchen gadget?

Bamboo cutting boards.

Perfect song to cook to? 

La Perla by Calle 13 and Ruben Blades

Most adventurous chocolate combination you’ve made or eaten?

Chocolate covered crickets.

Do you have a tip for anyone that would like to try and make chocolate at home?

First watch a few videos on how to melt chocolate; it burns very easy.  Start with Guittard or Ghirardelli chocolate, which is affordable but good quality.

Favorite Latin restaurant in the U.S.? 

Limón Rotisserie in San Francisco. 

Favorite Latin restaurant in the world?

Pujol in Mexico City.

Secret ingredient to make a dessert pop? Espresso makes chocolate taste more like chocolate.

Biggest food indulgence?

Anything made from scratch with fresh pure ingredients: tamales from corn harvested in the morning, birria from a goat my dad raised, cheese from my aunt’s cows, wine from my friend’s vineyard.